Lorena Hickok was the eyes and ears of the New Deal, travelling thousands of miles around the country, interviewing participants in the relief program that Roosevelt initiated. Although Eleanor is mentioned in the title, she is a very small part of the story, and rather a distraction to the monumental job Hickok did. I don't care about the personal relationship between the two women. I was fascinated by the stories of the farmers in the upper Midwest, the migrant workers in California and those people living in New York city. The biggest surprise was in the chapter on coal country, which discussed my hometown and Hickok's visit there. I want to investigate further. Unfortunately I had to dog ear the page because the town is not listed in the index, and it was mentioned much more than once.
This book opened a discussion between my mother and me about the period. Although she was a toddler then she remembered stories from my grandmother and that fact that my grandmother would not let my grandfather participate in the strikes that crippled the coal fields at that time. There was violence, and he had 9 children. I didn't know that.
I would have given this book five stars except for the few minor complaints I have mentioned. If you want to know what people really felt and how they really lived during the middle of the depression and what Roosevelt tried to do about it, this is the book for you. I am already loaning it out. ( )